Chapter 318: A Moment For Drastic Measures (1/2)
The aperture was in a tent that had been set up around it, with a makeshift military camp assembled around that. The story was the usual terrorism readiness exercise. The tent was almost of circus proportions, easily fitting a Network ritualist, Hector, Espinoza, plus Jason, with Asya as an escort and Abreo, with a pair of burly bronze-rankers as an escort. On top of that was the ritual circle around the aperture.
The aperture normally would have been invisible, but the ritual circle drawn under it was causing it to crackle with energy, revealing its circular shape.
“Sir,” one of the Network’s ritualists said, “we just don’t have a way in. I don’t see a means to break a ritual on the other side of the aperture from this side.”
“How long will it take to change that?” Hector asked.
“How long did it take to go from dial phones to cellular phones?” the ritualist asked. “Unless you have a whole new field of magic sitting around somewhere, we’re done here.”
“Mr Asano,” Hector said. “You’re meant to be the great font of knowledge from another world. Do you have a whole new field of magic sitting around somewhere?”
“Yep,” Jason said, not moving his eyes from the aperture.
“Then by all means, proceed.”
Jason looked down at the purpose-built wooden boards with the ritual circle drawn onto them. They were tightly slotted together so as to not break the ritual circle drawn onto them. Jason broke the ritual himself by drawing his foot through a chalk line in the magical diagram and the visible magic it contained faded and dispersed.
“Turn off those mana lamps until I need them,” Jason instructed. “I’m going to have to start with a harmony ritual to balance out the ambient magic, which I won’t need them for.”
The harmony ritual was one of the few lesser rituals that didn’t require iron-rank magical density. It served the same function as Clive’s Mana Equilibrium racial gift, except it took more effort, more time, some lesser spirit coins and wasn’t as effective.
Clive could level out the ambient magic with a snap of his fingers, doing such a thorough job he never needed to adjust his ritual circles. Even after performing his first ritual and having the mana lamps turned back on, Jason still needed to use powdered lesser monster cores to gauge how his second ritual was interacting with the ambient magic.
“This will open up the aperture?” Hector asked as Jason’s ritual become more and more complex. He was constantly referencing Clive’s notes, which Jason was lucky to have access to. Clive had kept them with Jason’s books on astral magic, which was beneficial to Jason after losing Clive as a resource.
“It won’t,” Jason said. “The purpose of this ritual is to figure out what we’re dealing with.”
When he enacted the ritual, it seemed at first like the one the ritualists had used, leaving magic crackling over the invisible aperture.
“So much for that,” the ritualist said, happy not to have been shown up.
“Wait for it,” Jason said, eyes still locked on the aperture. Slowly there was a shift in the magic and the crackling energy started forming into distinct shapes. Eventually the aperture was covered in floating, glowing runes that shifted, merged, split and transformed in complex patterns.
Shade emerged from Jason’s shadow to stand next to him, to the surprise of the other people in the tent except for Asya.
“What do you think?” Jason asked him.
“I have little grasp of ritual magic,” Shade said. “To my eye, however, it does seem less sophisticated than the seal locking the Order of the Reaper’s astral space.”
“It is,” Jason said. “By a lot. That said, Clive and Emir’s team took months cracking that seal. Testing, analysing, retesting. Even if I wasn’t reliant on mana lamps for that, which I very much am, it will be time consuming. It may not be months, but I’m not Clive. Unless I get lottery win lucky, it’ll be weeks.”
“You’re saying you can open it?” Hector asked.
“Very eventually,” Jason said and turned to Abreo. “If you’re holding anything back, Abreo, now is the time to talk.”
Jason walked over to stand in front of Abreo, who shrank away only to bump into one of his unmoving escorts.
“If I discover that you could have helped me here and you didn’t,” Jason told him, his voice low and resonant, “the Network can’t protect you from me. I will do to you what your men failed to do to me and take you away. The subsequent final few weeks of your life will be an experience that cannot be described, only felt. Do you know what it’s like to have your soul scoured, Mr Abreo? It changes you. Marks you. No healing potion or magic power can undo it.”
Abreo’s gaze lingered on the scars on Jason’s face as he trembled, almost shaking. Fear stained his aura like a poison, even as Jason’s aura ground Abreo’s into nothing, pressing on his soul like a knife to the throat.
“I can’t do anything, I swear! don’t know a way in. That was all Adrien’s to manage. Oh god, please believe me!”
Abreo’s guards were wide-eyed at the display of aura power, but when they glanced at Hector he shook his head, signalling them not to intervene. Jason relaxed his aura suppression and turned back to the aperture.
“Taking weeks to get through is better than not getting through at all,” Hector said. “They’re bottled up and not going anywhere.”
“Not good enough,” Jason said.
“Obviously, we’ll be looking for alternatives,” Hector told him, “but it’s exceptional enough that we can get in there eventually. Getting through right now is impossible. We need to accept that and direct our energies where they can actually accomplish something.”
“It’s been my experience,” Jason said, eyes once more glued to the aperture, “that much of what people call impossible is an unwillingness to accept the price of moving forward.”
“Mr Asano,” Shade said. “I worry that you are going to make a decision with long-term ramifications in the heat of the moment.”
“You’re a smart guy, Shade,” Jason said. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Ability: [Nirvanic Transfiguration]
This ability will be evolved from the ability [Astral Affinity].Your body and soul will be combined into a gestalt entity both physical and spiritual in nature. This state will grant inherent resistance to effects that utilise the soul-body disconnect.The nature of your new body will render you immune to resurrection effects, including those of high-rank healing magic. If your body is discorporated, your soul will return to a purely spiritual state, unable to reinhabit a physical form or re-enter a physical reality. This prevents the natural formation of an outworlder body on entering a physical reality. These restrictions will change on reaching diamond rank.When suffering lethal damage, instead of dying, your new body will undergo a nirvanic rebirth, returning to a state of full integrity. This effect cannot be triggered again until you have increased in rank from the last time it was used. This ability will change on reaching diamond rank.The strength of your aura will significantly increase.Your resistance to hostile dimension effects and disruptive force damage will be increased. This is an enhancement of the [Astral Affinity] ability.The effect of your dimension effects and your transcendent damage will be increased. This is a legacy effect of the [Astral Affinity] ability.Physical reality around you will be more stable. You will be able to sense nearby astral space apertures and proto-astral spaces coterminous to your location.You will be able to traverse astral space apertures, including those that are closed or have been sealed.You will be able to directly enter proto-astral spaces coterminous with your location or directly leave a proto-astral space to a coterminous location.While within the astral you will be able to create and maintain a small zone of physical reality around you. This does not grant the ability to enter or traverse the astral.
Of the many effects of the strange ability offered to him by the World-Phoenix, the ability to pass through sealed astral space apertures had seemed like a minor consideration. In this moment, it was a more crucial power than coming back from the dead.
“You held well-reasoned reservations about that power,” Shade said. “The wiser course would be to take some time to cool down and consider the consequences of claiming this power.”
“I already know the ramifications of not taking it,” Jason said. “Farrah in the hands of that man for weeks while I pick a lock, when I could have slipped in the window.”
“Have you not considered that you may have been offered this power in anticipation of this very scenario?” Shade asked. “The World-Phoenix may well have placed her where she arrived as part of engineering this result.”
“Of course it has,” Jason said. “But even if that is the World-Phoenix’s plan, my knowing that doesn’t mean it won’t work. This is what I need right now and what did I say, Shade?”